


The Postman Always Rings Twice

by NeoVenus22



Category: 30 Rock
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 15:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeoVenus22/pseuds/NeoVenus22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone did at least one damning thing in the span of their career, right?  Liz Lemon figured she did about three a day on average.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Postman Always Rings Twice

Everyone did at least one damning thing in the span of their career, right? Liz Lemon figured she did about three a day on average.

This was the thought running through her head as she made her way to Jack's office for what was likely to be an extremely frustrating encounter. She was also hoping that it wouldn't last longer than twenty minutes, or else she might not make the half-off lunch special. And she was so busy thinking about these things that she completely forgot to consider the reasons why Jack Donaghy might be summoning her to his office. Or asking her to close the door behind her.

"Lemon. This is a very interesting piece of, uh, _literature_ that you left for me," said Jack, holding up between two fingers something that looked suspiciously like...

"Oh crap," muttered Liz. Louder, she tried to cover, "Listen, Jack..."

Jack, predictably, ignored her feeble protests, took the offending piece of paper firmly in both hands, and began to read aloud: "'This is a very difficult thing for me to say, but you know me, sometimes I just end up saying stuff. And the stuff I wanted to say was I don't hate you.'" Jack glanced at her. "Touching words."

"Look, I..."

"'I seem to have developed some sort of temporary affection for you,'" Jack continued, breathing a mild emotion into her words, and losing the 'um, uh' cadence she'd staggered with when originally penning the thing. "'I don't know what this means, and rest assured, it makes me immensely uncomfortable.'"

Jack sat at his desk and smoothed the paper in front of him. He stared at her expectantly, while she tried to figure out which of her coworkers had betrayed her and delivered the letter. Just because something was in a labeled envelope on top of her desk didn't mean it was supposed to _go_ anywhere. Kenneth was her prime suspect; he was probably an honorary mailman or something and believed he was doing his civic duty. And now Liz realized she was going to have to talk her way out of this and never make the lunch special in time.

"Liz Lemon," Jack pronounced, although he sort of danced his tongue around the words in a really weird tango. As though this was a conversation he'd never imagined having. That made two of them. "I find this little proclamation of yours very disturbing. I try not to have romantic entanglements with coworkers more than two pay grades below mine."

"Romantic entanglements?" Liz sputtered. "No. No, no, no."

Jack's eyes flitted to the letter and back to her in a deft display of dubiousness that was really quite impressive. "You mean you're not looking to..."

"Have a relationship? No. Definitely not." The one time she'd conjured up the notion of dating Jack Donaghy, in a Rocky Road-induced haze, all she'd been able to picture was him in a smoking jacket, while she flitted around in some French maid outfit, dusting gold trophies, simpering, and eating nothing but phallic foods for the rest of her life. One could not subsist on cucumbers alone.

Jack stared at her flatly. "I meant have sex with me."

Liz choked on nothing. "What, like, now?"

"Well, I'm due to christen a ship this afternoon, but I suppose I could squeeze you in," he mused, loosening his tie. Loosening his _tie_, as if they were going to do it here, now, on his _desk_ or something. (Not that she'd ever thought about that... Well, all right, a few times. His desk was so much cleaner, and... well, sturdier than hers. Besides, fantasies, late at night in front of Conan, in a boxed wine-induced haze, were an _entirely different matter_ from idle imaginings as to what an actual relationship with the man would be like. If people were proud of their fantasies, the entire field of professional counseling wouldn't exist.)

"No, that wasn't what I... Wait, christen a _ship_?"

"My job description is multi-faceted, Lemon. As is my sexual repertoire, if you're so inclined."

"No, I really can't," she said. "There's this half-off lunch special I've been meaning to do, that I'm just about to miss..."

"I can buy you lunch," he said dismissively. Was he going for his belt?

"Wouldn't that make me a whore?"

"As though you've never slept with someone as thanks for a fancy meal," he scoffed.

"No!" Okay, three times, but she was young and sometimes struggling writers did things they regretted. She'd gotten food poisoning that one time, anyway. And this was when she realized Jack Donaghy was taking off his pants. Maroon silk boxers, and _why_ was she looking? "Jack, I don't want to sleep with you!"

"I'm quite sure you do," said Jack, unperturbed.

"Why, why would you think that?"

"Isn't that what you meant by 'temporary affection'? A series of meaningless sexual encounters?"

"No! It says quite clearly there," she pointed at the ominous paper on his desk, the one she now fervently wished she'd never written, the one she wished she'd never even contemplated writing in an imitation cheese snack-induced haze. "I mean I don't hate you!"

"Oh," said Jack. "I see."

He looked a little deflated; Liz imagined that rejection was probably not commonplace as far as Jack was concerned, or at the very least, he was deluded enough to have convinced himself of that fact. Post-rejection guilty blabbing was something she was unfortunately skilled at, so it was the crazy part of her brain that said, "I mean, not that I wouldn't have," Jack's jaw twitched, "I might have considered," Jack's eyebrow raised, "well, you're my boss."

"Oh," said Jack. "I see."

Liz glanced up at him. "Am I going to be fired for this?" she asked.

"Lemon, if I fired everyone who offered to sleep with me, the job market would be in worse shape than the liberals already claim it is."

She wasn't going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole. "Could you just... could you just put on your pants again, please?"

This of course - of _course_\- would be the moment where Kenneth walked into the room. She thought he was a nice enough guy most of the time, but today Liz was convinced that Kenneth was a demon sent from hell to make her life just that much more embarrassing.

"Oh. Mr. Donaghy, Ms. Lemon, I didn't know I was... interrupting anything."

"You weren't! You aren't. We were just..."

"My pants fell," said Jack with gravitas. "Kenneth, I'll require a new belt. Could you get one for me?"

Kenneth blinked. "A... belt, sir?"

"A belt. For keeping one's pants up. Thank you, Kenneth."

Kenneth bowed and scraped his way back out of the room, sealing Liz's humiliation for awhile.

"So we're clear," said Jack, "no sex?"

"No. None."

He eyed her suspiciously, as if he'd been somehow privy to her various fantasies. "But you don't hate me."

"I... no."

Jack nodded. "I see. I don't hate you either."

"That's very comforting, Jack."

"I'll save your very generous offer for another time, then."

Liz opened her mouth to protest that it was merely a declaration of not-hate, not an open invitation to her panties. Instead, she just thumbed at the door. "I have to go," she said, and in her haste to escape, she almost went tumbling backwards over the desk.

"That's not a no," he called after her.

Liz hustled back to her office, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. This was not her best day ever. She sat down at her desk and made a mental note to either burn all paper or never eat fake cheese-based snacks again. And that was when she realized she'd missed the lunch special.


End file.
